Revision as of 02:52, 25 February 2018

Summary

The Video Device In TOP can be used to capture video from an external camera, capture card, capture dongle, IP camera, or video decoder connected to the system. Multiple devices can simultaneously stream video into TouchDesigner by using multiple Device In TOPs. HD-SDI video can be streamed into TouchDesigner through capture cards such and those from Blackmagic Design.

If the device does not seem to provide a video stream but it is visible in the Cameras parameter menu, make sure no other applications are currently using the device.

Point Grey (FlyCapture2)pointgreyflycapture - For use with Point Grey cameras using the FlyCapture2 SDK. NOTE: We recommend using Spinnaker driver below when using Point Grey GigE cameras. Not supported on macOS.

Point Grey (Spinnaker)pointgreyspinnaker - For use with Point Grey cameras using the Spinnaker SDK. Recommended for their GigE cameras. Not supported on macOS.

AVFoundation (macOS)avfoundation - Use AVFoundation to interface with the camera on macOS.

NOTE: The cameras supported by the custom libraries above will also work with DirectShow on Windows, but using the custom library allows access to more camera controls and the control settings are saved in the node.

Devicedevice - Select which camera or decoder you want from this menu.

Specify IPspecifyip - When using Allied Vision library allows you to specify the camera address by IP.

IPip - The IP address used when Specify IP above is turned on.

Optionsoptions - Opens the options or control panel for the camera. NOTE: Only works when using DirectShow (WDM) cameras.

Deinterlacedeinterlace - Sets which fields to capture.

Off - Captures all fields.

Odd - Captures Odd fields only.

Even - Capture Even fields only.

Bob (Split) - Alternatively shows the even then odd fields, resulting in twice the framerate being shown, and removing the interlacing artifacts.

Field Precedenceprecedence - When using Bob (Split) deinterlacing, this selects which field is shown first for each frame.

TV Channelchannel - Selects the TV channel if a TV tuner is used as the video input.

Signal Formatsignalformat - Some Blackmagic cards do not automatically set signal format, this parameter allows it to be set correctly.

Input Pixel Formatinputpixelformat - Some capture devices support pixel formats other than 8-bit. For supported devices this will make the node attempt to use that capability.

Async Upload to GPUasyncupload - This will upload video images to the GPU asynchronously, at the cost of using more GPU and CPU memory (about 3x as for this one node). The extra memory usage is only a concern if you are using Async Upload on a lot of nodes (many Movie File In TOPs for example, which use the same mechanism).

Note: Syncing is only supported by DataPath cards currently.

Syncing allows multiple nodes using multiple inputs and capture cards on a single system to ensure they are outputting frames in sync. Without this each node will be free running and will possible be outputting frames that came it at different times due to internal queuing. It's important the input sources are GenLocked to ensure all of their data arrives to all of the inputs at the same time, otherwise syncing will not work.

Sync Group Indexsyncgroupindex - There can be multiple sync groups active in a .toe file. Nodes will only sync to other nodes that are part of the same sync group.

Max Sync Offsetmaxsyncoffset - Specified in milliseconds. The maximum difference in time two image could have arrived at be considered in-sync. Images that arrive at times more different than this offset will be considered to be part of different 'frame'.

Sync Timeoutsynctimeout - Specified in milliseconds. Any of the inputs have not yet received a new image for the next required output, this controls how long the system can stall for, waiting for the missing images to arrive. It will freeze the playback for this number of milliseconds, so this number should be kept very small unless dropping frames is preferable to being out of sync.

Parameters - Common Page

Fit Resolution - Resizes the input to the size specified in Resolution using the best possible match that does not crop any of the input. It will resize the image to be larger than the input resolution if a larger resolution is specified. It's a "fit inside", Aspect Ratio is maintained.

Limit Resolution - Limits the input to the size specified in Resolution using the best possible match that does not crop any of the input. It will NOT resize the image to be larger than the input resolution if a larger resolution is specified. It's a "fit inside", Aspect Ratio is maintained.

Custom Resolution - enables the Custom Res parameter below, giving direct control over res in the X and Y axis.

Resolution - enabled only when the Output Resolution parameter is set to Custom Resolution. Some Generators like Constant and Ramp do not use inputs and only use this field to determine their size. The drop down menu on the right provides some commonly used resolutions.

Use Global Res Multiplier - Uses the Global Resolution Multiplier found in Edit>Preferences>TOPs. This multiplies all the TOPs resolutions by the set amount. This is handy when working on computers with different hardware specifications. If a project is designed on a desktop workstation with lots of graphics memory, a user on a laptop with only 64MB VRAM can set the Global Resolution Multiplier to a value of half or quarter so it runs at an acceptable speed. By checking this checkbox on, this TOP is affected by the global multiplier.

Output Aspect - sets the image aspect ratio, which is the visible width vs height, independent of the pixel resolution. If the pixels are not square, the aspect ratio is not the resolution's width/height. Watch for unexpected results when compositing TOPs with different aspect ratios.

Input - uses the input's aspect ratio.

Resolution - uses the aspect of the image's defined resolution (ie 512x256 would be 2:1), whereby each pixel is square.

Fit Best - stretches or squashes image so no part of image is cropped.

Fit Worst - stretches or squashes image so image fills viewer while constraining it's proportions. This often leads to part of image getting cropped by viewer.

Native Resolution - displays the native resolution of the image in the viewer.

NOTE: To get an understanding of how TOPs works with images, you will want to set this to Native Resolution as you lay down TOPs when starting out. This will let you see what is actually happening without any automatic viewer resizing.

Interpolate Pixels - uses linear filtering between pixels. This is how you get TOP images in viewers to look good at various zoom levels, especially useful when using any Fill Viewer setting other than Native Resolution.

Mipmap Pixels - uses mipmapfiltering when scaling images. This can be used to reduce artifacts and sparkling in moving/scaling images that have lots of detail. When the input is 32-bit float format nearest filtering will always be used, regardless of what is selected in the menu.

Pixel Format - format used to store data for each channel in the image (ie. R, G, B, and A). Refer to Pixel Formats for more information.

11-bit float (RGB), Positive Values Only - A RGB floating point format that has 11 bits for the Red and Green channels, and 10-bits for the Blue Channel, 32-bits total per pixel (therefore the same memory usage as 8-bit RGBA). The Alpha channel in this format will always be 1. Values can go above one, but can't be negative. ie. the range is [0, infinite).

8-bit fixed (Mono) - Single channel, where RGB will all have the same value, and Alpha will be 1.0. 8-bits per pixel.

16-bit fixed (Mono) - Single channel, where RGB will all have the same value, and Alpha will be 1.0. 16-bits per pixel.

16-bit float (Mono) - Single channel, where RGB will all have the same value, and Alpha will be 1.0. 16-bits per pixel.

32-bit float (Mono) - Single channel, where RGB will all have the same value, and Alpha will be 1.0. 32-bits per pixel.

8-bit fixed (RG) - A 2 channel format, R and G have values, while B is 0 always and Alpha is 1.0. 8-bits per channel, 16-bits total per pixel.

16-bit fixed (RG) - A 2 channel format, R and G have values, while B is 0 always and Alpha is 1.0. 16-bits per channel, 32-bits total per pixel.

16-bit float (RG) - A 2 channel format, R and G have values, while B is 0 always and Alpha is 1.0. 16-bits per channel, 32-bits total per pixel.

32-bit float (RG) - A 2 channel format, R and G have values, while B is 0 always and Alpha is 1.0. 32-bits per channel, 64-bits total per pixel.

8-bit fixed (A) - An Alpha only format that has 8-bits per channel, 8-bits per pixel.

16-bit fixed (A) - An Alpha only format that has 16-bits per channel, 16-bits per pixel.

16-bit float (A) - An Alpha only format that has 16-bits per channel, 16-bits per pixel.

32-bit float (A) - An Alpha only format that has 32-bits per channel, 32-bits per pixel.

8-bit fixed (Mono+Alpha) - A 2 channel format, one value for RGB and one value for Alpha. 8-bits per channel, 16-bits per pixel.

16-bit fixed (Mono+Alpha) - A 2 channel format, one value for RGB and one value for Alpha. 16-bits per channel, 32-bits per pixel.

16-bit float (Mono+Alpha) - A 2 channel format, one value for RGB and one value for Alpha. 16-bits per channel, 32-bits per pixel.

32-bit float (Mono+Alpha) - A 2 channel format, one value for RGB and one value for Alpha. 32-bits per channel, 64-bits per pixel.

Scripting

oppardetails -p /videoin1 (for example) lists all the dynamic menu choices (as does oppardetails -p /videoin1 device). If there are no choices listed it might be an indication no cameras are installed.